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Y2K Center urges more information on Y2K readiness

WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Nearly half the world's nations lack
Web sites dealing with the Year 2000 computer glitch, a potential
blow to investor confidence, a U.N.-backed clearing house said on
Tuesday.

A survey by the Washington-based International Y2K Cooperation Centre
found that 87 countries had no Internet sights about preparations for
the possible failure of some automated systems on Jan. 1, 2000.

Another 47 nations provided information in languages other than
English that the World Bank-funded centre said it could not fully
evaluate.

Bruce McConnell, a former technology official at the White House
Office of Management and Budget who is director of the International
Y2K Cooperation Centre, said the more readiness information
disclosed, the better a country's chance to maintain confidence at
home and in international markets.

``If little information is released, people will make decisions based
on consultants or rumours,'' he said in a statement. ``They may
assume the worst -- that adequate preparations have not been made.''

The International Y2K centre was set up in February under U.N.
auspices to promote global cooperation to minimise problems due to
the date change. It defines readiness as upgrading systems to deal
with the old practice of storing dates in two-digit fields and having
back-up plans for systems that are not fixed.

If information on the state of preparations is not provided, the
consequences will be unpredictable and could be severe, the centre
warned. It said an English-language website was essential for a
country to be effective in the ``international finance community and
the press.''

The centre said it was exploring ways to assist nations in
translating their Y2K web-sites into English. The so-called Y2K
glitch stems from fears that computers may misread the date on Jan. 1
as 1900 instead of 2000, possibly disrupting systems from airlines to
bank teller machines to power grids.